Battery, supercapacitor, fuel cell technology and potential

The new IDTechEx report, "Energy Storage for Electric Buses and Trucks 2019-2029" is for all in the value chains from investors and material suppliers to systems integrators. It reflects the fact that the requirement for energy storage in buses and trucks is similar and these markets are growing rapidly. In a series of waves, the storage demand is powering upwards to over $200 billion in 2029 with buses and delivery vans already well into electrification, even to the point of pure electric versions with large batteries dominating. Now trucks are a focus and their potential is largest of all. The world has ten times as many trucks as buses. However, the report reveals over 1.5 million school buses being electrified last of all. Reflecting the preferences emerging, the report looks particularly at pure electric versions, the end game, but the much smaller energy storage for hybrids losing market share are also covered.

Yes, it finds that lithium-ion batteries will continue to dominate but appraise ongoing safety and supply risks not least because of rapid redesign of every part. Uniquely, the report surfaces the two radical advances in supercapacitors which will make them more like ideal batteries able to take more market share and why. Learn how fuel cells are succeeding best in the largest trucks and how all these technologies combine and improve over the coming decade, as clarified in new infograms, technology roadmaps and detailed forecasts for many types of bus and truck.

As usual, the research is carried out by globally travelled multi-lingual IDTechEx analysts who interview in local languages. Updating is continuous so you always get the latest; this report was entirely written in late 2018-2019 using inputs from research and industry leaders, privileged databases and other sources including IDTechEx conferences on the subject. IDTechEx analysts are recognised as global experts themselves: we are part of the community so we have the inside track. We are also free of evangelising: indeed we reveal six ways the capacity and cost of the energy storage will be reduced in later years while retaining vehicle performance.

The report starts with a detailed Executive Summary and Conclusions for those in a hurry needing the essence of the findings and predictions, the bad news and good. The dynamics of the industry is clarified such as when vehicle technology achieves the killer blow of lower up-front price of ever larger bus and truck EVs as measured in kWh. Typical battery and supercapacitor parameters are compared including for the versions emerging in robot micro-buses. See the statistics, even for school buses, and the forecasts of battery and supercapacitor energy density improvement, penetration of different lithium-ion chemistries into the many vehicle sub-sectors and so on.

The Introduction then looks at the fundamentals of EVs, emissions, powertrain options by cost over the years and progress of the battle between fuel cell and battery large trucks, embracing costs, performance relativities and more. Chapter 3 gives the detail on actual buses and their energy storage and chapter 4 does the same for trucks. Chapter 5 is a deep dive into lithium-ion batteries but this is no party line or academic treatise. We explain why massive scale up while changing anode, cathode, electrolyte and format, or most of these, is risky. Learn why each is happening.

Chapter 6 of "Energy Storage for Electric Buses and Trucks 2019-2029" will be a surprise as it reveals that there are now two credible routes in research to supercapacitors with energy density approaching that of early lithium-ion batteries yet superb cycle life, deep discharge, safety, poison avoidance and power density. Will an urban bus with no battery charge only at depot and take only minutes to do so? We have done the interviews and calculations to find out. Understand how such supercapacitors can transform adoption including in combination with fuel cells or batteries. Chapter 7 analyses the changing tradeoff of the good and bad about fuel cells and here, as elsewhere in the report, the subject is brought alive by detail of many actual fuel cell vehicles. Chapter 8 compares technical and commercial details of 140 sources of lithium-ion batteries. Throughout, the advice is to watch what is achieved, the trends and the theory rather than what people say: that way, the future winners and losers are revealed.

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